[UPDATE, WEDNESDAY, 10/7, 10:59 A.M. ET]
Source: Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr. was fined about $9,000 for actions in Sunday's game in Buffalo. http://t.co/UHTjrscHdg
— Dan Graziano (@DanGrazianoESPN) October 7, 2015
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"Prima donna." "Weird." "Golden boy." Just an "alright" wide receiver. The Buffalo Bills went after New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. on Tuesday, saying he threw multiple punches at their players during Sunday's game and throwing a variety of other verbal jabs in his direction.
Here's one from Buffalo cornerback Stephon Gilmore:
"I don't know what's up with him," Gilmore said. "He acts like nobody's supposed to hit him and you're supposed to let him catch the ball. He's weird. He gets mad when you play physical with him. He's weird.
"He's different. It's kind of like you're playing your little brother and he gets mad at you for being too physical with him — throwing a tantrum. I'm like, ‘Man, we're playing football. It's a physical game. ... He's a prima donna. He feels like he's on top of the world and nobody's supposed to do anything to him."
Gilmore also trashed Beckham's receiving ability, saying "his world is based on hype and that one catch." Here is more from the ills' cornerback:
"He has good hands, he can catch. He's good but he's not what people think after that one catch.
"His world is based on hype and that one catch," Gilmore said. "Everybody sees that, everybody knows him for that and people don't really look at the film and watch him and really don't know what type of player he is."
Buffalo linebacker Preston Brown called Beckham a "golden boy," and Bills' safety Duke Williams took issue with how much Beckham gets away with.
"A guy like that," Williams said, "you expect him to be a stand-up guy but I guess it is a part of his game. He likes to throw cheap shots here and there and gets away with it. I guess it's his thing. ...Right in front of the referee and he threw a jab at me and ran behind his teammates. He ran away. I'm just like, ‘Wow. That's crazy.' "
Valentine's View
I am certainly not going to claim that Beckham is completely innocent, there have been too many incidents in the first 16 games of his career to think otherwise. His styling, his apparent trash talking, his quick celebrity and his occasional lack of ability to simply get up and walk away without a little something extra when teams have been physical with him are all factors.
Without doubt, Beckham is one of those players you love when he is on your team and hate -- because of his physical ability and everything else he brings to the table -- when you play against him. And yes, he has probably brought some of this upon himself.
Still, a lot of this sounds like sour grapes from a Buffalo team that played completely undisciplined football on Sunday and got embarrassed in front of its home crowd when Beckham, quite honestly, wasn't even a factor in the game.